


"I Carry Your Heart"

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's in Washington, and when his duties require him to interact with the crew of the Destiny via the Ancient stones, that can be a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"I Carry Your Heart"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JD Junkie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=JD+Junkie).



> I used the same house they live in from my fic ["The Long Way Home."](http://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/442017.html) Because that house made me happy.

When Jack got home, he could hear the rock music booming from the open front windows as soon as he stepped out of the car. Daniel always liked to open the windows on these mild fall days, but the music was something else again. It was a sign. Oblivious, Jack's driver pulled away from the curb.

With every step up the short walk, the music became clearer. Jack sighed and loosened his tie. He had a feeling he knew what this was about. It was some screaming new band he didn't know the name of; Daniel's taste in music was constantly updated, unlike his own. Bracing himself, he opened the door. The onslaught was just as battering as he'd expected. A phrase from his teenage years floated through his head -- _if it's too loud, you're too old_ \-- and he concluded that yeah, maybe he was too old.

He considered calling Daniel's name, but discarded that idea. Nothing short of a bomb going off could be heard over this. Just the thought made him wince. Recent history, again.

Up the stairs, to peek into the third bedroom, which was the home office. Daniel's old room was kind of a guest room since he'd moved into the master suite with Jack a couple of years ago. Daniel was facing away from the door, on his knees in a wilderness of paperwork, surrounded by open drawers and gaping document boxes. It looked like a file cabinet had exploded. Several filing cabinets.

Daniel was apparently catching up on organizing.

Yeah, Jack knew what this was about. He glanced to his left. There was the wastebasket, overflowing. He bent and picked up something nice and big and legal-sized, stapled together, coffee-stained, and tore off the first sheet. Dropping the rest, he wadded up the sheet and pitched it expertly at Daniel's bent head.

Which jerked vertical. Daniel set his shoulders. He groped for a remote in the debris around his knees, and the music suddently stopped. The silence was echoing.

Jack backed up two steps and leaned a shoulder against the door jamb.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Daniel said, over his shoulder. He took a deep breath, Jack noted, and put the sheaf he was holding on the floor. Jack registered a moment of envy at Daniel's posture, sitting easily on his knees. Not something in Jack's repertoire any more. Daniel took another couple of moments to square up the edges of the sheaf. Then he got to his feet and turned to Jack. Three strides closed the distance. Daniel just walked right over whatever paperwork was lying there. He put his hands on Jack's shoulders and stared into his eyes. He didn't say a word.

"It's me," Jack said quietly. "You know I'd never do that. Send someone home who wasn't me."

"I know," Daniel said, but he didn't move. He kept searching Jack's face until he found something that inexplicably satisfied him. His eyes relaxed, but his mouth firmed. He squeezed Jack's shoulders and brushed by him. His tread was heavy on the stairs. Jack sighed. Might as well go on to the bedroom, get out of the uniform.

There was more to say, he was sure of that. Or more to hear.

Those goddamned Ancient stones. They'd been one of the eeriest, wrongest kinds of technology he'd ever had the misfortune to have to mess with, and that included being stabbed in the shoulder by a sentient spear, way back in the day, at the old SGC.

Snapping the waistband of his sweats, he had a drifting moment of thinking about Joe the Barber. To think that at the beginning, he'd found the whole idea restful.

Restful. Jesus.

Music more to his taste, and at a livable volume, twined up the stairs as he came down them.

"Thank you," he called.

He heard noises in the kitchen and headed that way. Daniel had brought some cheese out of the fridge, and was slicing it, and there was that half-finished tub of hummus, and so Jack found the rest of the merlot and pulled down two glasses and a box of crackers.

Happy hour drifted on for about twenty minutes, out on the back porch, the screened one with the speakers. The big Victorian had a total of three porches and one balcony, but only one of them was screened. Marge, he noted distantly, was nosing around in her dog dish, happily looking for the last scraps, out there in her dog run at the back of the small yard. Daniel must have found a minute to feed her before he'd started on the human snacks. It made Jack vaguely happy. Marge had been his idea; not Daniel's. Yet Daniel took care of her just the same.

Daniel was swirling the last mouthful of his wine in the bottom of his glass. Jack braced himself. That was a tell, too, just like the music.

"I ran into Merriweather in the hall outside your office about ten this morning," Daniel said to his wine. "I started rambling at him about those Furling entries Nikki Varland discovered in the Asgard database. He had to stop me from blurting all that and tell me who he was."

Jack sighed. This morning it had been another emergency from that damned ghost ship. And another trip for him into someone else's body, in some distant galaxy. He didn't like it at all, any time it happened, despite the necessity. And Daniel had been sucked in to the drama again. Daniel, who hadn't been the one to discover the damn things, but who had been the one, so far, who had paid the biggest price in guilt.

Daniel drained his wine and put the glass on the table between their chairs.

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

"I know," Daniel said, and glanced over at him, a quick smile, a genuine spark shining through his dour mood. Daniel looked out at the yard and bridged the short distance to put his hand on Jack's arm. Jack covered it with his free hand and sighed again.

Daniel said, "It always makes me think of the first time. When Vala and I became Harrid and Sallis." He pulled his hand away and pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes. Then he abruptly stood. "I know you'd love to see Marge and I imagine she'd like to get out of her cage right about now."

He went out the door and down the steps. Jack watched him approach the dog run, watched Marge hesitantly approach him, tail wagging at half mast, picking up on his mood. Then she did her little jig of glee when he opened the gate and let her out. Well-trained, she ran straight to the screen door, leaving Daniel in the dust, not barking, just dancing with repressed excitement. Jack opened it for her and was treated to the kind of pure, in-the-moment love that only golden Labs and small children bestow on their lucky adults.

Daniel, Jack finally noted, was still standing in the yard, watching something, or nothing, in the distance, arms folded.

"Come on, honey," Jack murmured to the dog, and went out. The dog nearly upended him on the steps, then busied herself sniffing along the row of plantings that separated their driveway from the house next door.

Jack ambled over to Daniel and put his hands on Daniel's shoulders, as Daniel faced away from him. "Those damn stones. They're way more trouble than they're worth. I wish that _Destiny_ crew didn't have them. I think they'd do better on their own, like the Atlantis people did."

"Yeah, well, the Ancients aren't known for the overwhelming benevolence of their inventions, now, are they."

Daniel turned, then, and let Jack fold him close. Relief washed over him. It wasn't always that Daniel let this happen. Let Jack offer what comfort he could. What they had wasn't any kind of a solution for the fucked up shit the universe kept lobbing at them. But it was a damn sight better than nothing. And it felt so good in the moment. Something Jack had learned to appreciate.

Daniel murmured against Jack's shoulder, "I still think about them, you know. Vala does too."

"I know. I think that's one of the things I love most about you."

Daniel started at that, straightened up and met Jack's eyes, while keeping a hand on his waist. "What? My unhealthy obsessions with past failures that I can never make right?"

"No, you idiot." Jack's mild insult was without venom, and, as he'd intended, drew a smile from Daniel. He scritched fond fingers through Daniel's short beard as he continued, while soaking in the feeling of Daniel's warm hand at his waist. "The way you keep them in your memory. The way you never forget them. Harrid and Sallis."

Daniel smiled. And Jack knew why. This was the kind of thing that he'd normally mess up on purpose, scrambling someone's name or scrambling some noun to give a tense meeting a focus, a humorous space in which some out-of-the-box thinking could develop. But Jack had always known their names, ever since Daniel and Vala Mal Doran had told him about what had happened. He knew them through Daniel's memories, and it wasn't something he'd ever joke about.

Daniel put a hand to his cheek, and nodded, still meeting Jack's eyes. Warmth bloomed in Jack's gut then, and he relaxed.

"Harrid and Sallis," Daniel repeated, pressing his hand to Jack's face.

"You remember," Jack said. And, risking a bit here, because Daniel's stated opinion of Vala tended to skew wildly and unpredictably, moment by moment, "And so does Vala."

"Vala..." Daniel said, but then he looked down and began to chuckle. At the same time, Jack was knocked off balance. His bolt of adrenaline cooled immediately when he realized it was Marge, shoving her impetuous self between them, looking for love as she always did. He obliged.

"I should call her," Daniel said, bending to pet Marge and ruffle her ears, in his turn. Satisfied, she bounded away. "It would be good to hear her voice."

" _Hammond's_ in orbit until next week. I bet she's downworld."

"She is. She's at Mitchell's. I had an email from her as soon as they arrived. But it would be good to talk to her."

Daniel slung his arm around Jack's waist as they headed for the house.

"So. You do that," Jack said. "Call her." And when Daniel began muttering about their options for dinner, Jack smiled to himself and let it go. This shit, the shit they did, the difficult life that they had signed up for, never got easier. Their peril was real; their peace always balanced on the knife's edge. But Daniel, like Jack himself, had learned not to let the shit destroy him from the inside. And Jack counted that as a win.

end


End file.
